


Timeline A

by Inyri



Series: Dr Jillian Holtzmann, Time Traveler [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-29
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-10-12 15:36:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10494021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inyri/pseuds/Inyri
Summary: Dr. Jillian Holtzmann crashed from 1984 into 2016, upsetting the lives of roommates Erin, Abby, and Patty. Now, she has time traveled once again to save the world from a ghost invasion, leaving Erin to deal with her undeniable feelings for the genius time traveler.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome! If you're reading this without reading Flung Out of Space first, you're going to be pretty lost. Go back and give that a read if you haven't yet. 
> 
> If you have, welcome to the Holtzbert fest! This will be a semi-slow burn with lots of busting in the meantime.

Erin stared at the spot where Holtzmann had stood just a second before. It seemed unreal somehow. Sure, she’d seen ghosts and witnessed a tear in the barrier between the realms, but a woman disappearing without a trace felt stranger than any of the other things she’d experienced.  

She waited for something, anything, to happen. After a minute, she realized that she’d been holding her breath for too long. She sucked in a breath, sending herself into a coughing fit.

Abby stepped over, patting her on the back and asking if she was alright.

“She should have come back by now,” Erin said once she’d stopped coughing long enough to talk. “She should have re-appeared by now.”

Abby and Patty looked at each other and Erin hated how sad they looked.

“You’re not seriously giving up already,” Erin said. “It’s only been thirty seconds.”

“The train will be here soon,” Patty commented softly.

Erin’s eyes went wide. She hadn’t even considered the train.

“What if Holtzmann materializes when the train is going by?” Erin asked. “What will happen to her?”

“Hun, we should get back on the platform,” Abby said, laying a hand on Erin’s back.

“No. We have to wait for Holtzmann.”

The computerized voice, suddenly ominous in the situation, announced that the next train was arriving.

“We’re outta time,” Patty said. “Grab the ghost trap.”

Erin grabbed the trap from where she’d left it, hugging it to herself even though she knew it was covered in an uncountable amount of disgusting things. It was one of the few things left of Holtzmann and she was going to make sure nothing happened to it.

Patty ushered Abby and Erin up the stairs, letting out a visible sigh of relief when they were all safe on the platform. Erin stared as the train pulled into the station, filling up with passengers before racing off again. It moved to reveal the empty tracks.

Erin couldn’t stop her heart from crashing down into her feet.

“Come on, Erin,” Abby said, “let’s go home.”

Abby reached for Erin’s hand, taking it briefly and squeezing it.

“I’ll get us a cab,” Patty said. “I think we’ve all had enough of subways for one day.”

Erin stared at the tracks one last time before turning away at Abby’s insistence and following her friends aboveground.

They barely spoke for the entire ride back. The moment they arrived at home, Erin locked herself in her room and pulled out her laptop. She was two hours into her fruitless internet research on “Dr. Jillian Holtzmann engineer” when Abby knocked on her door.

“We got pizza,” Abby said through the door. “You can have some if you’d like.”

“I’m alright,” Erin answered. “But, thanks.”

“Sure,” Abby said.  

Erin emerged from her room long after the pizza had gone cold and Abby had put the leftovers away in the refrigerator. The apartment was dark, save for the tiny nightlight by the front door.

She crept quietly to the kitchen, not wanting to wake Abby and Patty. She tried to push off the wave of sadness that threatened to bring tears to her eyes again, slowly pouring filtered water into a glass. Then she scavenged for the leftover pizza, smiling at how it had been put away in neat little foil-wrapped portions for her.

Erin stood in the middle of the kitchen, leftover pizza in her hand, and just stared at a ragged pock-mark in the linoleum. She kept wondering why the engineer’s absence bothered her so much and how long it would take her to shrug off the weight of loss. The tears came despite her best efforts.

Then, there was the smallest knock at the front door.

For a moment, Erin thought she’d imagined it or just misheard the clang of the radiator in their living room that occasionally acted up. She stood completely still, listening hard to the silence of the night.

Then, there it was again – the undeniable sound of someone knocking on the front door.

She put down the pizza and picked up a frying pan that someone had left out on the drying rack. She made her way to the front door, waiting right beside it with her frying pan at the ready.

Then, the third time: the knock, tentative and polite.

“Who’s there?” Erin asked through the door, trying to sound bigger and tougher than she actually was. Of course, it was ridiculous to think that a burglar would be _knocking_ , but still…

“It’s me,” came the voice. “Holtzmann.”

“Holtzmann?” Erin gasped, her voice loud after all the whispering and sneaking around.

She held onto the frying pan and unlocked the front door as quickly as she could with one hand. Then, she carefully opened the door.

Holtzmann, in all her machine-clad, messy-faced glory, stood in the hallway as though she was meant to appear there all along.

“You’re alive!” Erin said, dropping the frying pan and throwing her arms around the engineer.

Holtzmann stiffened in her embrace and the time machine hanging from her chest stuck painfully into Erin’s stomach, but Erin just held tighter, because she was too relieved to care about either.

“Yes, I’m alive,” Holtzmann said with a small chuckle. “Can I come in?”

“Yes, yes, of course, sorry,” Erin said, releasing her and taking a step back so Holtzmann could walk past her into the apartment.

Holtzmann went straight into the living room, throwing her time machine onto the floor and flopping onto the couch. Erin closed the door, picked up the frying pan, and followed her in, standing in the middle of the rug and staring at her as though she expected the blonde to disappear.

“God, I’m beat,” Holtzmann said. “It okay if I crash here tonight?”

“Um, _yes_ ,” Erin said, as though it was a ridiculous thing to ask. “But, how are you even here? When you didn’t show up in the subway tunnel, we thought your Slingshot Effect hadn’t worked. We thought you’d returned to your time or ended up somewhere else or not made it anywhere.”

Erin knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t stop herself. Holtzmann stood from the couch, stepping closer to Erin and placing her hands on her upper arms. It was then that she saw Erin’s eyes up close and realized that she’d been crying.

“Hey, Erin, it’s okay,” Holtzmann said softly. “I’m perfectly intact. It just took a little longer than expected to travel through the barrier. Turns out traveling between realms takes actual time. Who knew?”

Erin laughed pathetically at that, tears starting all over again.

“Were you going to brain me with a frying pan?” Holtzmann asked, pointing to the large pan still in Erin’s grasp.

That got another small laugh from Erin, who dabbed at her eyes with her free hand.

“I thought you might be a burglar,” she explained.

“Now I’m really glad I didn’t pick the lock like I’d planned,” Holtzmann said. “And, God, Erin, what kind of burglar knocks?”

“I don’t know,” Erin admitted, her voice still wavering with tears, “a polite one?”

“Alriiight. And they say I’m the weird one.”

Erin smiled at that, saying, “I think it’s safe to say that we’re all a little weird here. Except maybe Patty. She’s got her stuff together.”

“If you say so.”

Erin just looked at Holtzmann in the dim lighting of the living room, still shocked that the woman she’d spent nearly all day crying over was right in front of her. It felt like a miracle, or some insane singularity in her data set that she’d never anticipated.

“We should wake the others,” Erin said. “Let them know that you’re alive. They’ll be really happy to see you.”

Holtzmann just smiled at her. Erin lingered a moment, basking in that smile, and then she rushed off to wake her roommates.


End file.
